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<title>5.18.1 PrettyPrinter Objects</title>
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<h2><a name="SECTION0071810000000000000000"></a>
<a name="PrettyPrinter_Objects"></a>
<br>
5.18.1 PrettyPrinter Objects
</h2>

<p>
<tt class="class">PrettyPrinter</tt> instances have the following methods:

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-907' xml:id='l2h-907' class="method">pformat</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>object</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Return the formatted representation of <var>object</var>.  This takes into
account the options passed to the <tt class="class">PrettyPrinter</tt> constructor.
</dl>

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-908' xml:id='l2h-908' class="method">pprint</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>object</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Print the formatted representation of <var>object</var> on the configured
stream, followed by a newline.
</dl>

<p>
The following methods provide the implementations for the
corresponding functions of the same names.  Using these methods on an
instance is slightly more efficient since new <tt class="class">PrettyPrinter</tt>
objects don't need to be created.

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-909' xml:id='l2h-909' class="method">isreadable</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>object</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Determine if the formatted representation of the object is
``readable,'' or can be used to reconstruct the value using
<tt class="function">eval()</tt><a id='l2h-910' xml:id='l2h-910'></a>.  Note that this returns false for
recursive objects.  If the <var>depth</var> parameter of the
<tt class="class">PrettyPrinter</tt> is set and the object is deeper than allowed,
this returns false.
</dl>

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-911' xml:id='l2h-911' class="method">isrecursive</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>object</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Determine if the object requires a recursive representation.
</dl>

<p>
This method is provided as a hook to allow subclasses to modify the
way objects are converted to strings.  The default implementation uses
the internals of the <tt class="function">saferepr()</tt> implementation.

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-912' xml:id='l2h-912' class="method">format</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>object, context, maxlevels, level</var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Returns three values: the formatted version of <var>object</var> as a
string, a flag indicating whether the result is readable, and a flag
indicating whether recursion was detected.  The first argument is the
object to be presented.  The second is a dictionary which contains the
<tt class="function">id()</tt> of objects that are part of the current presentation
context (direct and indirect containers for <var>object</var> that are
affecting the presentation) as the keys; if an object needs to be
presented which is already represented in <var>context</var>, the third
return value should be true.  Recursive calls to the <tt class="method">format()</tt>
method should add additional entries for containers to this
dictionary.  The third argument, <var>maxlevels</var>, gives the requested
limit to recursion; this will be <code>0</code> if there is no requested
limit.  This argument should be passed unmodified to recursive calls.
The fourth argument, <var>level</var>, gives the current level; recursive
calls should be passed a value less than that of the current call.

<span class="versionnote">New in version 2.3.</span>

</dl>

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<span class="release-info">Release 2.5.1, documentation updated on 18th April, 2007.</span>
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